CD1 race remains wide open – Cicilline leads by 1 point in new Channel 12 poll
The sharply fought First Congressional District race will likely be won through the ground game on Election Day since a new Channel 12 poll shows the contest remains very much up for grabs.
The poll by veteran pollster Joseph Fleming shows Democrat David Cicilline with a one-point lead over Republican challenger Brendan Doherty. The margin of error, meanwhile, is just under six percentage points.
Just under 43 percent of respondents say they plan to vote for Cicilline, compared with just under 42 percent for Doherty.
Independent candidate David Vogel gets a little more than 6 percent of the support, and more than eight percent of respondents remain unsure of their choice.
The poll is based on interviews with 300 registered voters in the First Congressional District.
The findings have tightened since Channel 12’s last poll earlier this month, when Cicilline had a six percentage point lead.
On Politics 
Once again I wonder whether Fleming has included any Spanish-speaking respondents in this poll, and whether efforts were made to incorporate Latino respondents more broadly, including those who are English fluent. If Latinos are included, how many? Is the share of respondents proportional to our population in the District—12%? If Latinos are *not included, or are under-sampled, this race may not be a toss-up at all, since Cicilline enjoys overwhelming support among Latinos. To be fair, the invisibility of Rhode Island Latinos is typical of other polls, even in the presidential race. See the report at http://www.latinodecisions.com/blog/2012/10/23/why-pollsters-missed-the-latino-vote-2012-edition/
Prof. Tony Affigne
Providence College
Executive Board
RI Latino PAC
Tony’s got a good point, with the race this close, it would be good to know WPRI’s turnout model and what their house effects are. Most polling firms have a permanent skew of a few percentage points. Figuring this out would be a great project for On Politics to take on.